Behind the Lines: by David Heiller

David Heiller We were riding back from the second spillway Sunday evening, my nephew, his friend, and me. It was starting to rain, so I wasn’t paying much attention to the dogs, who were trailing behind. Maybe I was too busy admiring the three nice catfish on my stringer. Riley Our dog Riley is half golden retriever, which shows up whenever we are near water. Any time we go to the river, he makes frequent side trips to cool off and take a drink. If there is a dead fish to roll around in, so much the better. As we pedaled our bikes across the first spill-way, my nephew shouted out Riley’s name in a tone of voice that brought me to a quick stop. I looked back to see Riley head for the water, about three feet from the inlet to Running Slough. If you’ve never been to the Reno Bottoms, the inlet from the river to the slough is a culvert about five feet in diameter that carries a huge volume of water from the river through it at all times. The water spreads out below it into...

David Heiller It’s funny how something can sneak up on you and bring a smile. Cindy and I found that on Sunday afternoon, when we took a walk to the quarry by Reno. The view of the quarry from the top of Hillside Road We parked our car in the little lot on Hillside Drive, walked up the broad trail, then turned right and marched up the old road to the quar­ry. It’s a marvelous spot. The limestone stands sheer and beautiful, 100 feet high, and still looks amazingly fresh. You almost expect to hear a dump truck come rumbling up for a load. Of course, that won’t happen; there are a lot of trees growing in the quarry pit now, big birches that tell you it’s been three or four decades since this quarry was active. And that’s probably good, because another blast or two of dynamite might send the entire bluff onto Highway 26 and into the river. It’s really just a sliver of rock by nature’s standards. It’s a spiritual spot. A couple of young people have died tragically in rece...

David Heiller Cindy and I are on the verge of moving into our new house. I hesitate writing that, because of the jinx factor, but I will forge ahead with the hope that a ll the sequences wi ll fa ll into place. Sequences are a big thing when you build a house. I swear they rival the chain of events in your average nuclear bomb. I started noticing the Sequence Factor with Tim, our fine plumber. He rea ll y didn’t want to put the toilet into the bathroom until the trim was in. Otherwise, it would be harder for John to do his fine trim work. And that trim work, we ll , it really should wait till Ma tt gets his fl oor registers in place. And Ma tt rea ll y needs Brad to get the furnace wired. And Brad sh o uld have that tile on the wall before he puts in the receptacles. But Will, the tile guy, needs the vanity in place first so he can work on that. And Casey should have the vanity done tomorrow, but he has to finish the trim first. Then when the trim is done, Tim can get g...

David Heiller It really wasn’t fair, the way Randi Vick hood-winked me. She had come to The Argus on Monday, October 11, beaming about a dog that one of her home health care clients needed to give away. David and Rosie and her cauliflower. Rosie was truly an omnivore “It’s a miniature dachshund,” Randi said. That caught my ear. My wife, Cindy, and I had been talking just the day before about getting that very breed of dog. My sister Kathy has one that we like, named Willie, and some friends from Duluth who had just visited us have one too, named Peanuts. Miniature dachshunds seem to lend themselves to spunky names like Willie and Peanuts. So I told Randi to find out more about the dog, how old she was, what she was like, that kind of thing. Randi said yes, she’d do that on Friday, and let me know more. I told Cindy about it that night. We agreed again that it wouldn’t be a bad idea. We already have two dogs, but one, MacKenzie, is 11-1/2 years old, and is showi...

David Heiller It’s interesting what a change in perspective can do to something as simple as fog. The view from our home in southeastern Minnesota. Under that cloud is the Mississippi River.  On the horizon is Wisconsin. When I was a kid growing up in Brownsville, fog would roll in almost every morning at this time of year. I never gave it much thought. It meant Dale Besse would drive the school bus a little more slowly up the mile grade. When I went to Fruit Acres to pick apples, the drive would take a little longer, until the old 1964 Chevy broke through the clouds above La Crescent. Then I would see the river bathed in clouds and I would pull off at the scenic overlook, and something would tug inside of me. Beauty like that is a gift, and I have carried that vision in the back of my mind for decades since. Now the vision is here to stay, and it hasn’t lost its luster. It snuck up on me a couple weeks ago, at our ridge overlooking Heiller Valley. (Hey, it u...

David Heiller It was fun to write the articles in this week’s paper about the 1970 wrestling team. I think about that team and season a lot. I was a junior that year, and wrestled quite a bit of varsity at 154. Bob Lange wrestled at 145, and Ron Meiners wrestled at 165 during much of the season. When the district tournament came, Ron cut weight to wrestle 154, and I was out of a job. That was not a problem, because Ron was in another league, and that’s the nature of sports. You’ve got to learn to lose. That might not sound like a good attitude, but it ultimately leads to learning how to win. Bob Lange’s mother, Vi, reminded me of that. I found a folder full of old newspaper clippings about the 1970 team in a dresser drawer a couple weeks ago. One reporter interviewed Mrs. Lange after the state tournament, and she said, “These boys have won and lost and you must win and lose to be a winner.” I couldn’t agree more. The Langes personified wrestling, a sport which has a stran...

David Heiller We pushed off the grassy bank and into the dark waters of the Reno Bottoms on Saturday morning, heading for parts unknown. A good canoe trip is like that, and there are definitely parts unknown in the bottoms. We had a couple fishing poles and a couple hours. Is there anything in life sweeter than that? My nephew, Alex, sat in the middle, behind his girlfriend, Laura. I was in the stern. View of the river on the way down to the spillway,  which begins the Reno Bottoms adventure. As we worked our way along the eastern shore of Running Slough, the feeling of freedom that comes from being in a canoe hit me. No worries about getting hung up. When that happens, and it did many times that day, you paddle over and retrieve your lure. It almost always comes free from the right angle. No worries about making the perfect cast either. It’s hard not to make the perfect cast when you can paddle to the perfect spot. Alex did just that, and had a nice tussle for ab...

David Heiller Blue Corn. Grape Harvest. Barn. Blue Hour. Harvest Gold. It sounds like a poet describing a Van Gogh painting. Wicker Basket. Mannered Gold. Venture Violet. Surf Green. Or maybe an Amish farmer a ft er his first trip to Bissen’s Tavern. But it’s none of the above. The answer is C, as in Cindy, at a paint store. This is our electrician wiring a light  in the entryway. But mostly it is a picture of  the color of the entryway/kitchen. It still pleases me. Yes, those All-American images are colors of paint that are starting to adorn the wall s of our new home, and picked out mostly by my fine wife, Cindy. Tim Serres, our plumber, summed it up best when he took a look at the bedroom that our daughter, Malika, is claiming. “So who’s the Vikings fan?” he asked. Tim, like all good plumbers, has a way of cutting to the chase. Sorry Tim, that’s not good old Viking purple. That’s Venture Violet, a color that Malika picked out. She takes a ft er her...

David Heiller I have a couple images of my uncle Donny that will stay with me forever. Donny and his wife, Lillian.  One is quite old. My brother Danny and I were sitting on top of a hay rack stacked five high, watching Donny pull us on his trusty Ford tractor across the field and toward the barn. There was one spot where the road went perilously close to the ditch. My brother and I got ready to jump off on the safe side if Donny got too close and the wagon tipped. But that didn’t happen, and Donny seemed oblivious to our concerns, jostling around on the tractor far below us, although knowing Donny, he was smiling the whole time. A little later we took a water break, and Donny passed me the jug with the news that it was filled with 7-Up. Wow, 7-Up on the farm, now that was living! I took a big swig and discovered to Donny’s delight that it was just plain water, and warm at that. I had to laugh with him though, he was that kind of guy. He always had a trick up his slee...

David Heiller Dear Grandma, The big week is here. The tree is up in its new spot in the new house. It’s small, only about five feet tall, so I put it on top of two bee boxes, and Cindy put a tree skirt around it. It looks great, like it belongs there, and it has three presents under it. We went out and bought a tree this year, the first time for as long as we can remember. No fir trees on our property down here. The first Christmas in the new home. Christmas different this year, Grandma. The kids are gone now. When they were little, it seemed like they brought Christmas with them. The concerts and school artwork and Sunday School pageants, even our trip to the woods to cut the tree were all a big part of the Christmas feeling. I miss their excited talk about the presents under the tree. They would shake and rattle them, with an occasional word of warning from Cindy or me. “Careful with that one, Noah.” “I wouldn’t squeeze that one if I were you, Gol.” They would c...